In Broadcast - March 2018 - 57

57

www.inbroadcast.com | Vol: 8 - Issue 3 | March 2018

InMedia

Qligent Match Programmatic
Error Detection Solution
With real-time detection of programmatic and playout issues across multiple platforms,
Qligent's Match, which will make its North American debut at NAB, provides a Cloud-based
"as-run audit trail for the IP era"...

A

t a time when branded content
is increasingly delivered across
traditional, mobile and IP distribution
platforms, Qligent - a specialist in
Cloud-based, enterprise-level content
monitoring and analysis - will bring its
new Match solution for programmatic
error detection to North America at the
upcoming 2018 NAB Show. The latest
software addition to the company's
flagship Qligent Vision Cloud-based
delivery analytics platform, Match will
be demonstrated in booth at NAB.
Real-Time Automated
As a real-time, automated solution
that monitors by exception, Vision
Match can mine, compare, and
analyse a tremendous amount of data
and relay just the most meaningful
information to those responsible for
the content's brand reputation. More
importantly, Match gives broadcasters
- as well as advertisers, regulators,
and other stakeholders - the means of
quickly answering such questions as:
*	 Did the correct show
(or advertisement) play on the
right channel at the right time?
*	 Was the correct number of local
ads inserted at the right time?
*	 Was foreign language audio
assigned to the right audio track?
*	 Were any aspect ratio
conversions injected such as
pillar bars or letter boxes?
Match
finds
programmatic
discrepancies like these by decoding
the transport or IP-based stream
back to baseband video and audio,
and then comparing that to ancillary
reference data that was captured of
that programme in its native state

prior to distribution. When combined
with other Vision modules, additional
analysis can be conducted such as
whether proper closed captioning was
displayed, audio loudness compliance,
whether intended watermarks were
present, verification of proper DPI
trigger insertion, and percentagebased quality degradation from the
original material.
"Without Match, as long as the video
is playing out smoothly, a third-party
network operator would have no
way of knowing that they're actually
airing the wrong show, or other
content-related problems," said Ted
Korte, Qligent COO. "Since nothing is
technically wrong with the signal that
would trigger alarms, the problem
could go on for quite some time, often
until a viewer calls to complain."
Reference Alerts
When Match detects a programmatic
error or mismatch, it automatically
alerts on-duty operators and/or
notifies the administrator of the issue
via email or SMS message. It also
generates a video recording of the
reference and monitored streams for
side-by-side playback so broadcasters
can easily verify exactly what went
wrong and where. According to Korte,
this in-depth analysis can only be
effectively managed by an automated,
purpose-built, Cloud-based solution
like Match on the Vision platform.
"With shows they air on their
own channels, broadcasters can
refer to their as-run log to verify
what programmes and ads were
commanded to air for auditing
purposes," he explained. "But today's

Qligent Match video comparison tool

as-run software can't tell them how
their content actually fared in the
downstream distribution channels,
as more functions dynamically
manipulate the streams and content as
it progresses out to viewers, well past
the master control environment. It's
just gone beyond their control."
Rising Complexity; Rising Errors
As
broadcasters
increasingly
outsource
master
control
and
multiplatform distribution functions
to third parties while feeding
more headends, Korte says that
programmatic and QoE errors are
on the rise due to the repeated
multiplexing,
compression,
and
encapsulation involved, as well as local
ad insertions, routing, personalisation
and other media processing that occur
along the distribution chain.
"In conjunction with other Vision
modules, Match essentially serves
as an as-run system for the IP era by
shining a light on programmatic or QoE
problems that the broadcaster would
otherwise be completely unaware of
in downstream channels, and which
would cast a poor reflection on the
content's brand," Korte said. "Now
stakeholders can move their as-run
logging out to the last mile or within
each DMA. Content and ad owners,
providers, distributors, broadcasters,
and others can use this valuable
audit trail to take whatever corrective
actions are necessary to improve the

Match offers automated
real-time error detection

downstream viewer experience and
protect their brands going forward."
In the OTT domain, Korte added:
"Providers would likely never realise
there was a technical problem that
detracted from the viewer experience
for their branded content. If a viewer
tried to access the stream and then
abandoned it, was it because they lost
interest or was it actually due to a
problem, like initial buffering was too
long, too much re-buffering, or other
issues common to OTT? By leveraging
Match on the Vision platform,
broadcasters can spot and eliminate
those kinds of technical variables, and
work with their distribution partners to
ensure a better viewer experience."
Comprehensive Analysis
The Vision platform's comprehensive
analytical capabilities now encompass
four major areas of concern: the
detection of compliance errors
(regulatory/SLA), objective errors
(QoS), subjective errors (QoE), and
programmatic
errors
(expected
presentation to the end user). By
leveraging Vision's broader data
analytics processing, Match gives
broadcasters unprecedented visibility
of their entire broadcast supply
chain, including the terrestrial, cable,
satellite, IPTV, mobile, OTT, and social
media services that deliver their
branded shows to a potentially global
audience.
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